Paladin: Seal of Insight no longer has a chance to restore mana on attacks. Grand Crusader no longer has a chance to activate from Crusader Strike and Hammer of the Righteous, but now has a 30% chance to activate when dodging or parrying a melee attack (up from 12%).

Shaman: Chain Heal's effectiveness will no longer decrease with each jump, Healing Rain now has a higher AoE target cap in 25s, and there's a new talent: Rushing Streams. This new talent replaces Healing Tide Totem, increases healing done by Healing Stream Totem by 100%, and causes the totem to heal 2 targets at once.

Rygarius

This is a new raid difficulty designed for pre-made groups of 10 to 25 players or any number in between. This means it's possible to have raids of 15 or 22 players! Difficulty will adjust automatically based on the number of players present with encounters intended to provide a challenge roughly between Raid Finder and Normal difficulty.

Flexible Raid difficulty requires a pre-made group to join but has no minimum item level requirements or role restrictions. Both BattleTag™ and Real ID friends are eligible to participate.

Loot quality will be between Raid Finder and Normal difficulty and awarded through a personal loot system (similar to Raid Finder). Bonus rolls and loot specialization will also be supported.

Player spells with different target limits depending on raid size will gradually increase their limits based on the number of players in Flexible Raid difficulty.

Players will be able to earn raid achievements just like in Normal or Heroic difficulty.

Flexible Raid difficulty has a lockout that is separate from Raid Finder and Normal difficulty.

Proving Grounds is a new feature for individual players to test and improve their combat skills.

At the Proving Grounds, players may undertake trials, designed for Damage, Tank, or Healer roles.

It provides a great opportunity to learn how to Tank or Heal, without the need of a group.

Each trial is available in four separate difficulties: Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Endless. Harder difficulties include more difficult and varied enemies.

Endless mode allows you to test your mettle against increasingly difficult enemies. Compare your best scores to friends and guildmates!

: Access to the Proving Grounds and more information is coming soon.

New Feature: Virtual Realms

Virtual Realms are sets of realms that are fused together, and will behave exactly as if they were one cohesive realm. Players on the same Virtual Realm will be able to join guilds, access a single Auction House, join arena teams and raids, as well run dungeons or group up to complete quests.

Players belonging to the same Virtual Realm will have a (#) symbol next to their name.

Redesigned Arena System

Players no longer need to create or join an Arena team to compete.

Similar to the Rated Battleground system, players in a party of the appropriate size (cross-realm groups are supported) may queue for an Arena bracket of the same size (2v2, 3v3, or 5v5).

Each player will have a personal rating that increase or decrease based on victories and defeats against other rated opponents. Opponents will be selected based on the average Match Making Rating of the party.

Conquest cap, requirements on gear and enchantments will be based on the player's personal rating.

The Arena ladder will no longer be sorted according to Battlegroup. Just like Rated Battlegrounds and normal Battlegrounds, all Arenas will now be region-wide!

At the end of an Arena season, the top players in a region will still earn titles and mounts.

Faerie Fire now has a duration of 20 seconds while in PvP combat (down from 40 seconds).

now causes the target to gain mana equal to 50% of the casting Druid’s Spirit every second for 10 seconds.

Wild Mushroom's Restoration version of the ability now summons a single mushroom at the friendly target’s location. If the mushroom is recast, the mushroom moves to the new location and retains its accumulated bonus healing. A single mushroom now heals for as much as what 3 mushrooms combined healed for previously.

Feral: Increases the amount healed by Healing Touch by 20%. Casting Healing Touch increases the damage for the Druid's next two melee abilities by 25%. causes the Druid's next Rip to deal 15% increased damage.

Guardian: Increases the amount healed by Healing Touch by 20%. Mangle (Bear) critical strikes have a 20% chance to make the next Healing Touch or Rebirth instant, free, and castable in all forms.

Restoration: Causes Wrath to deal 20% more damage and heals a nearby friendly target for 100% of the damage done.

Force of Nature Treant summoned by the Feral version of this talent will now cast Entangling Roots instead of Bash.

when activated, now also provides a 25% bonus to healing for Restoration Druids.Mass Entanglement no longer has a limit on the number of targets that could be affected, up from 5.Nature's Swiftness is no longer a talent, and is now an ability learned by Restoration Druids at level 30.Nature's Vigil when activated, causes healing spells now trigger an additional heal on a nearby ally for 25% of the amount healed. This is in addition to the existing effect where it damages a nearby enemy target for 25% of the healing done.Soul of the Forest has been partially redesigned to make it more attractive to Balance, Guardian, and Restoration Druids.

Guardian: Increases Rage generation from Mangle (Bear) by 20% instead of 30%, but the bonus now also applies to Rage generated by Primal Fury.

Restoration: Now causes the Druid to gain 100% haste (up from 75%) on their next spell after casting Swiftmend.

Ysera's Gift, a new talent healing the Druid for 5% of their maximum health every 5 seconds. If the Druid is at full health, it will heal the most injured friendly target nearby instead. This talent fills the spot vacated by Nature's Swiftness.

Glyphs

New Glyph: Glyph of Efflorescence increases the healing done by Swiftmend by 20%, causes the Efflorescence healing effect to be triggered by Wild Mushroom instead of Swiftmend, and lasts as long as the Wild Mushroom is active.

Charred Glyph now causes Ferocious Bite to heal the Druid for 2% of their maximum health for each 10 Energy used (up from 1%).

Charred Glyph now causes Innervate to give both the Druid and the target 60% of the normal effect of the spell if it's cast on a target other than the Druid.

Charred Glyph now reduces the mana cost of all shapeshifts by 100% (up from 90%).

Glyph of Rake now increases the range of Pounce by 8 yards (up from 3 yards).

Glyph of Skull Bash now increases the duration of Skull Bash's interrupt by 2 seconds, and increasing the cooldown by 5 seconds (down from a 4 second interrupt and 10 second increase to cooldown).

Balance

Eclipse now energizes the Druid for 50% of their maximum mana when triggered, up from 35%.

Predatory Swiftness no longer has a chance to make Cyclone instant, free, and castable in all forms.

Restoration

Genesis is a new Restoration spell learned at level 88. Genesis targets all party or raid members within 60 yards and accelerates the casting Druid's Rejuvenation effects, causing them to heal and expire at 400% of the normal rate. Costs the same amount of mana to cast as Rejuvenation.

Living Seed effects can now stack, up to 50% of the casting Druid's maximum health and will no longer be consumed if the target is already at full health..

Swiftmend's area-of-effect healing effect is now called Efflorescence.

is no longer capable of critical strikes, and accumulates overhealing done by Rejuvenation by 100%, down from 150%. Overhealing bonus no longer benefits from Naturalist or Mastery: Harmony.

Glyph of Remove Curse now increases the damage dealt by 15% after successfully removing a curse (up from 10%).

Glyph of Spellsteal now heals the Mage for 5% of their maximum health after successfully stealing a spell (up from 3%).

Frost

Mastery: Icicles has been redesigned. Fingers of Frost now increases the damage of Ice Lance by an additional 2%, Brain Freeze increases the damage of the instant cast Frostfire Bolt by 2%, and damage done by the Mage's Water Elemental is increased by 2%.

Healing Elixirs will no longer activate if the Monk is already at full health, and activate automatically when the Monk has less than 35% of their maximum health.Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger's summoned version of Xuen will no longer taunt off players that are tank-specialized.

For Brewmaster Monks, they now gain Vengeance when Xuen takes damage.

Power Strikes will now activate from all Chi generating abilities; Jab, Expel Harm, Spinning Crane Kick (when it hits at least 3 targets), Keg Smash, Crackling Jade Lightning, and Soothing Mist.Ring of Peace has a new visual effect and now disarms both enemies and those attacking allies within the Ring of Peace's area-of-effect for 4 seconds (up from 3 seconds); the silence effect for casting spells remains unchanged at 3 seconds.

Glyphs

Charred Glyph now increases the chance to summon a Healing Sphere by 100% (up from 25% chance).

Burden of Guilt has been replaced with a new talent called Evil is a Point of View, which allows the Paladin to use Turn Evil on players and beasts.

Execution Sentence will now immediately damage the target for 5 times the amount of damage that had been dealt by Execution Sentence's most recent periodic effect when dispelled. Stay of Execution will now immediately heal the target for 5 times the amount of healing that had been dealt by Stay of Execution's most recent periodic effect when dispelled.

Hand of Purity now reduces damage taken from harmful periodic effects by 80% (up from 70%) and reduces damage taken from harmful periodic effects that cannot be prevented by immunities by 40% (up from 0%). Sacred Shield changes have been reverted and is a talent once more.

Glyph of the Battle Healer has been redesigned. The glyph now causes Seal of Insight to heal the most wounded raid or party member instead of the Paladin.

Charred Glyph now causes Holy Shock to reduce the cast time of the next Denounce by 0.5 seconds, and the effect can stack up to 3 times.

Charred Glyph has been redesigned. The glyph now increases the duration of by 30 seconds (up to a maximum of 2 minutes) each time the Paladin lands a killing blow on targets that yield experience or honor.

Assassination Rogues should no longer be eligible for any other weapon types except daggers in situations where loot is automatically awarded (Raid Finder, Bonus Rolls, Heroic/Normal Scenarios, and the upcoming Flexible Raid difficulty.)

Chain Heal's effectiveness will no longer decrease with each jump (up from a 30% reduction to healing with each jump).

Earth Elemental Totem's summoned Greater Earth Elemental will no longer taunt off players that are tank-specialized.

Healing Rain's radius has been increased to 12 yards, up from 10 yards. For 25-player instances, Healing Rain will heal for a reduced amount when healing more than 14 raid members. It remains the same in 10-player instances, healing for a reduced amount when healing more than 6 raid members.

New Talent: Rushing Streams. This new talent replaces Healing Tide Totem, increases healing done by Healing Stream Totem by 100%, and causes the totem to heal 2 targets at once.

Healing Tide Totem is no longer a talent and is a baseline ability for all Shamans. Additionally, this totem will now heal 12 raid members (up from 5) when used in a 25-player instance. now heals for 50% more.

Archimonde's Darkness has been redesigned. For the passive portion of the talent, each time the Warlock or their pet takes damage, the Warlock now gains 1% of the unmitigated damage back as spell power for 20 seconds.

Howl of Terror is no longer a talent and is now a baseline skill for all Warlocks.

, a new talent replacing Howl of Terror. The Warlock sends out a cone of Shadow damage, snaring targets, has a 20-second cooldown.

Kil'jaeden's Cunning no longer reduces movement speed, and will now allow the Warlock to cast Incinerate, Drain Soul, and Shadow Bolt while moving. is no longer a passive ability. Kil'jaeden's Cunning now has a duration of 15 seconds with a 1.5 minute cooldown.

now deals 40% less damage, and if other periodic Affliction damage effects are triggered by , they now deal 60% of their normal damage (down from 100%).

Haunt now deals 50% more damage, and increases damage done by all of the Warlock's other spells against the target by 45%.

Drain Soul now deals 40% less damage, and causes all of of the Warlock's other periodic Affliction damage effects to instantly deal 30% of their normal periodic damage (down from 50%).

Nightfall now gives Corruption a 7% chance to generate a Soul Shard (up from a 5% chance), but the increased chance only works on the most recently applied Corruption.

Soul Swap no longer does any damage, and now copies damage-over-time effects instead of just moving them without needing a glyph. Copied effects now once again preserve their power and duration. Duration has been reduced to 6 seconds (down from 20 seconds).

Vigilance no longer transfers damage to the Warrior. The talent now reduces amount of damage the target takes by 30% for 12 seconds.

Warbringer now roots the target for 4 seconds instead of stunning them for 3 seconds. The 50% reduction to movement speed snare effect for 8 seconds remains unchanged. Glyph of Blitz will now cause Warbringer to root an additional 2 nearby targets.

Riposte is a new passive ability learned by Protection Warriors at level 76. When the Warrior dodges or parries any attack, they gain 50% of their Parry and Dodge as an additional bonus to Critical Strike for 20 seconds.

Ultimatum now activates from critical hits with Shield Slam instead of a flat 20% chance, and the ability will make the next Heroic Strike or Cleave be a critical hit in addition to costing no Rage.

Creatures

Bonus Roll change: Players that don’t have a coin or elect to not use a Bonus Roll when defeating one of the world bosses (Sha of Anger, Galleon, Nalak, and Oondasta) can come back later that same week to use the Bonus Roll. The limit has not changed and remains one attempt and one bonus roll per boss, per week.

Pet Battles

General

A new pet battle tournament is available on the Timeless Isle, more details coming soon!

Round timers in PvP Pet Battles will now get progressively shorter for a player who takes more than 15 seconds to issue a command during their turn.

Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios

The chance for awarding loot from using a bonus roll has been increased for Throne of Thunder on Normal difficulty.

Dungeons

Players who obtain a realm-best time in a Challenge Mode dungeon (group must contain at least 3 people from the same realm to qualify) will receive a temporary title specific to each dungeon (e.g. Siegebreaker for Siege of Niuzao temple, Darkmaster for Scholomance, etc.). This title will persist for as long as a player retains the top time on the realm. Holding a realm-best time at any point will also confer a permanent Feat of Strength to record the accomplishment.

Elite versions of Season 14 Grievous are now available as a mark of prestige for players that are able to attain a personal rating of 2000 and earn 27,000 Conquest Points in the current season. Pricing per piece remains the same but the previous piece requirement has been removed.

: For testing purposes, Grievous Flaskataur will be available near the Alliance/Horde shrines near Vale of Eternal Blossoms selling standard Grievous gear for gold.

: For testing purposes, the item level scaling of gear in Arenas, Battlegrounds and Rated Battlegrounds has been increased to 512 during the 5.4 PTR. Season 14 Grievous Conquest gear is exempt from this item level ceiling.

Battlegrounds and Arenas

Arenas

Conquest Points rewards for winning a random or call-to-arms Battleground match has been increased.

Bombs are no longer an item held in the player's inventory and will now do considerably more damage, 4500 (up from 1250).

Players carrying a bomb now have a button that allows them to place it with a spell effect over their heads.

Placing a bomb takes 2 seconds, and can be interrupted like a Battleground capture point.

Disarming a bomb takes 2 seconds, and can be interrupted like a Battleground capture point.

Demolishers will no longer have the Ram ability and only one will spawn at each stage.

For Arena matches lasting longer than 15 minutes, one of the teams will receive a buff called The Crowd Chose You!!! that increases damage, critical strike chance, stealth detection, and reduces damage taken. The buff is awarded based on the following criteria.

Team with the largest number of players alive.

Team that brought an enemy player closest to death (lowest health).

Arena Rating scaling in the 2v2 bracket has been tuned to be consistent with the 3v3 bracket.

Items

All permanent item enhancements provided by Enchanting, Engineering, Leatherworking, Tailoring, and various vendors and quests are now able to be applied to items of any level. This means all enchantments can now be applied to heirloom items.

High level enhancements applied to items equipped by low level players have their power scaled down to be similar to enhancements intended for that level range.

Low level enhancements applied to items equipped by high level players do not grow further in power beyond their intended level range.

Adjustments have been made to Mists of Pandaria faction quartermasters.

Epic quality (purple) Valor Points items sold by the Shado-Pan Assault now have their reputation requirements reduced to Friendly or below, and have their Valor Points cost reduced by 34%.

Epic quality (purple) Valor Points items sold by all other Mists of Pandaria faction quartermasters no longer have reputation requirements, and will now cost Justice Points instead of Valor.

The conversion rate for Justice Points to Honor Points have changed. The conversion rate is now 500 Justice Points per 250 Honor Points (up from 375 Justice per 250 Honor). Equipping any pair of PvP trinkets from Season 12 or later will now grant a 10% reduction in damage taken from other players. : For testing purposes, Flaskataur, Esq. will be available near the Niuzao Temple selling normal Tier-16 armor and Tier-16 trinkets for gold.

Comments

Comment by Drahken

on 2013-07-09T02:26:37-05:00

You saw what the notes said relating to Silencing Shot, though, right? SS is going to be exclusive to MM again, but the other two specs will have a new ability called Counter Shot. Presumably it just interrupts, but doesn't have the silencing effect. Frankly, the interrupt is what I'm looking for anyway. Silence isn't terribly useful to me in PvE anyway.

Comment by seabluesamy

on 2013-07-09T04:03:08-05:00

Silencing Shot only usable by Marksman? What the $%^& Blizz!

Finally! Now the facerolles need to learn how to interrupt not just macro the silencing shot to their burst... L2P ;)

Comment by Sino1337

on 2013-07-09T04:22:07-05:00

So what tier6 talent does warlocks have now thats actually worth anything ...?

Comment by neonjohn

on 2013-07-09T07:40:04-05:00

Well, I'm glad they're buffing Ring Of Peace, the biggest noob pvp spell in history. Great for PVE though.

Comment by Backstabmacro

on 2013-07-09T07:53:30-05:00

Interesting buffs to Subtlety.

Not enough to make me come back to play a spec that is still boring and piecemeal compared to Combat/Mut.

Cataclysm Subtlety was a glorious thing. Pairing with Legendary daggers didn't hurt either, but still; just in terms of spec design, the worst thing there was the fact you sometimes died from using your buff skill, Shadowstep (Suicidestep, as my guild jokingly named me). That's more of an encounter design issue than anything, but the balance of the spec and the feel of its DPS in PvE was nothing short of buttery goodness.

Buffing boring just makes boredom more powerful.

I'll look out for the next expansion.

Comment by Souhdrak

on 2013-07-09T08:00:29-05:00

Finaly fixing the loot mistake for Assa rogues, finaly!

Comment by EnderDragon

on 2013-07-09T08:22:41-05:00

You forgot to put the Paladin header at the End of the Monk abilities.

Comment by greg1martin

on 2013-07-09T08:47:10-05:00

EnderDragon - Glad to see your comment. I was about to say the same.

Comment by vindurza

on 2013-07-09T09:12:49-05:00

finally buffs for sub rogue that is my favorite spec to play even though assassination brings home my bacon and the fact I'll only get daggers and armor from raids makes me very happy since only a fool uses anything other than daggers unless the are specced combat and I am not now if only my gear didn't have a scrapmetal theme this patch ugh I think rogues must be post apocalyptic looking at our previous pvp gears which were mirelurk shells and road kill

Comment by grodon909

This isn't a nerf. Now that we have the option to use our filler spells while moving, we also have the option to NOT do so. In other words, we need some way to move and DPS. The problem with FF was that it was reapplying our DoTs, so it we had super OP dots on something, we would actually have to NOT cast to retain DoT strength

Comment by Interest

on 2013-07-09T10:09:12-05:00

Hunter: Counter Shot is now a baseline interrupt ability learned by all Hunters.

FINALLY. FINALLY. This is EXACTLY what I wanted.

Silencing Shot only usable by Marksman? What the $%^& Blizz!

I guess you haven't playd Hunter a lot eh? Silencing Shot was MM Hunter only before but in MoP they gave it to every spec as talent. I really liked old MM and this is just stupid. BM Hunters have pets which have ability to interrupt.

I almost wish they removed CC abilities from Hunter pets in general at this point...Yes. I do play a Hunter.

Comment by Baddogy

on 2013-07-09T10:53:02-05:00

Does anyone know yet how virtual realms will work with mailing heirloom gear? Or if we are limited to just 11 toons per virtual realm?

Comment by rinkworks

on 2013-07-09T11:05:40-05:00

Counter Shot is obviously the second half of a Hunter tweak that began with the Silencing Shot change, which would have been awful on its own.

I'm still waiting for the second half of the Frost Mage Mastery change that will somehow make THAT okay.

Comment by burningeagles

on 2013-07-09T11:18:00-05:00

Happy with the blood dk change, more healing shield! The prot pally grand crusader change is nice. And finally it looks like archimonde's vengance will actually be a decent talent unlike the current version now, inc tank locks who take tons of dmg to ramp up spell power!

Comment by Lordplatypus

on 2013-07-09T11:35:11-05:00

The!@#$ did they do to strands? this basically makes demolishers do 50% their current dps and lower the number.

Comment by Egre2

on 2013-07-09T15:39:42-05:00

Blizzard nerfing hunters again? ... It was enough that they took Blink strike and Lynx rush away stap it!

Comment by Nihilatos

on 2013-07-10T01:35:31-05:00

Nerfing Fel Armour... why? Warlocks are squishy cloth wearers, and taking 10% less damage can sometimes mean the difference between life and death. And Fel Flame NOT refreshing damage-over-time... that's just silly. Yes the damage itself is being increases and the cost decreased, but it seem that taking away the refresh ability doesn't make sense.

Comment by Pinkpaw

on 2013-07-10T13:36:07-05:00

When can we expect this to go live? cus yay TG whit polearms, finally !

Comment by Auralpsych

on 2013-07-11T12:33:49-05:00

Dear Blizzard, Please, for love of all warlocks, reconsider these massive nerfs to affliction. Thanks <3